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[Xander]

http://www.fileplanet.com/free_games.shtml

This seemed interesting enough to post about. Apparently these three Ubisoft titles have appeard on Fileplanet for free, except for the fact that the downloads list themselves as being 'Ad-Supported'. I don't know what that means exactly, I guess you have to watch adverts before playing? Or at intervals? I'll have to download raving rabbids to find out (since it's the only one I haven't played). Worth playing though? Maybe. Perhaps. Guess I'll go find out!

[lowpoly]

hmm, as long as it doesn't break you away from the game like a TV commercial, then it sounds like a good idea.

[Alex May]

I always hate the idea of ad-supported games, but on the other hand I like to think that I'm totally above advertising with the exception of cunning product placement. I guess there's a difference between product placement (and to an extent, ad placement) and in-your-face adveritising like the ads that they're putting in to Counterstrike 1.6 and that sort of thing. I dunno. It all sucks.

[Xander]

I don't like the idea of advertising in games, but depending on how intrusive these are here it could be a nice way of letting people play the back catalogue to build interest in future titles and maybe a little money from the advertising too.

...except of course that after downloading 1.2Gb does it tell me It's not available to me because I don't live in the US. It's Gametap all over again.

*Facepal-... oh, I can just create a US Ubisoft account instead? See, when it's -that- simple to fix you have to wonder why stupid things like that are put into place in the first place. Onwards with the experiment!

CONCLUSION: Ow. Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow. That's honestly about as annoying as adverts can possibly get. In terms of Raving Rabbids, you have to watch an 15-second advert at the end of every mini-game. Even if you lose, win, draw.. whatever possible conclusions there -could- be, the end result is the same. You watch an advert. The same advert. The same unbelievably monotonous and boring advert in the history of anything, advertising... something I don't even remember. It was either a burger or... some kinda game guide... I forget. It was THAT uninteresting. Annoyingly the game is quite fun, but worth sitting through the same advert over and over and over again? Bloody.Hell.No.

[shinygerbil]

Now how do you think they'd do that in POP? An advert after every cinematic? :\

[Headmade]

I downloaded Farcry and played through the first couple of levels and the only ad I spoted so far were 2 banners in the main menu.

[siiseli]

I downloaded pop and the ads show up when you try to save. How lovely is that..

[Xander]

Haha, that's quite sweet really. A hell of a lot less annoying than Raving Rabbids I'd argue, though then again RR doesn't have a save function, I think it auto-saves. Which would probably happen at the end of every minigame to save your score.

Right, guess that explains it then

[skaldicpoet9]

Hmm, look like I'll have to check it out, I'll wait until the servers aren't quite so busy though...

The last time I did download a game that was ad supported was 9Dragons which is a free MMO...I read that the advertisements would be in "unobtrusive" areas but they actually just seemed to pop up at random intervals, while you were playing the game
a giant ACCLAIM logo would pop up at the top of the screen which was pretty damn annoying and quite distracting....so I guess I'll see, hopefully it isn't like that for POP, I had it for PS2 but never got the chance to beat it...

[moi]

That sounds like a good idea to me, everybody's happy.